Mongo! .....

I got to meet Mongo while touring with John Mellencamp. We were in Chicago doing a show and I was hanging out backstage as usual. I was listening to some drunk Hanger-on, who was somehow important, regale me with Bullshit about this and that, when here comes this HUGE DUDE. I about shit when I saw it was Steve McMichael. I'm not a big "FanBoy" type who gets all wet and twittery about celebrity types, but MONGO was one of my favorite NFL players of all time and I must have looked all Fanboy, because the somehow important guy realized I was totally ignoring him. I said, "Shit! That's Steve Mcmicheal". Somehow important looks over and hollers out "Hey Steve. Come here." and here he came.

The guy is a small mountain. He's not exceptionally tall, 6'-2" or 6'-3", but he's W I D E. His hands are big and look like old tree roots. You can tell he's busted those fingers more than once and I'll bet he knows when the weather's going to change too. He was very friendly and talked for a good 15-20 minutes. I didn't have my camera unfortunately.

Later, out in the back I was looking for help to get Jay up in the bus when who should walk by? Oh yeah. I volunteered Mongo to help and he jumped right in. He coulda' picked Jay up and hauled his ass right up those steps if there had been room for both their big asses. He stood behind Jay and provided support and I worked the top. I never worried about Jay that night with that big ass dude there for backup.

Yeah, Mongo is OK people.